Lieutenant Governor says B.C. faces challenging economic times

That from BC Lieutenant Governor Judith Guichon, in the Speech from the Throne.

She says these are clearly challenging times.

“Oil and gas and commodity prices have fallen drastically, and our country faces immense economic challenges. Consider our neighbours in Alberta, a province of similar size and also blessed with natural resources. Over the decades, Alberta lost its focus. They expected their resource boom never to end.”

Housing

The province says it can’t do it alone.

But Guichon says the Clark government will focus on getting some answers on Metro Vancouver’s sky high housing prices, and help British Columbians get into the market.

“Your government will work with municipalities to reduce the hidden costs in home purchases, and to make those hidden costs clear and transparent to the homebuyers. Your government will work carefully to protect the savings and equity that homeowners have painstakingly placed in their homes.”

LNG in BC

The government also remains on the LNG bandwagon, but admits timelines spelled out earlier will not be met.

Children in Care

And it says it will bring on more social workers than had been recommended in a recent report by government advisor Bob Plecas.

Comments

Brace yourself. We’ll be seeing 1984 ala Gordon Campbell all over again. Unions better brace themselves for attacks on their collective agreements. One thing to remember is that these incompetent, self serving, lying boobs have been in power so long, they have only their governance to blame. It’s a shame. It’s a sad day for all the hard working, tax paying, honest citizens of our province watching this province go down the flusher.

What’s the answer to better governance in BC? Honestly I can’t think of any alternate governments that can step up, and I think that’s one reason this crew has gotten away with thinking only of themselves first, and the citizens second.

Remember crusty’s promise and all you fell for it,get a grip. Three strikes and you are out on you ass. 1 crusty promised 1 million new Jo’bs, 2 debt free BC, 3 trillions in the bank. How can you people vote for such a lunatic,examine yourselves before you vote next time,

Because, unfortunately, there is no middle-of-the-road alternative to vote for. (you know, like the Liberals used to be before Gordon Campbell and his merry band of SoCreds and ultra-righties hijacked it and moved it waaaaayyyy to the right).

“Consider our neighbours in Alberta, a province of similar size and also blessed with natural resources. Over the decades, Alberta lost its focus. They expected their resource boom never to end.”

The Christy Clark government is now says that Alberta’ current economic plight was not the fault of the NDP or Notley government.

The operative words are : “Over the decades…” over 4-1/2 decades when successive Progressive Conservative governments were in power, Alberta lost its focus {and squandered its oil wealth} expecting that the resource boom will never end.

Kudos to Christy Clark and her government forgetting that right. Dale-are you listening?

Having said that, Christy Clark and her government are guilty of counting their LNG chickens before they hatch. In the 2013 election, Christy Clark promised that the LNG revenue that would create a $100 billion legacy fund, create 100,000 jobs, eliminate sales taxes and well as make BC Debt Free would begin to flow in 2015. Even though they received a mandate from the electorate, they failed to keep that promise.

Compare that performance with Justin Trudeau who kept his election promises bringing in more Syrian refugees and bringing our F-118s home.

Let’s hope that whomever is running the province doesn’t get sucked into catering to all the special interest groups that demand more be spent on their particular sector- that’s what sunk Alberta….and in BC it includes health and education in particular.

As for Christy’s LNG failing hopes….blame the anti-everything and First Nations for the hoops that are required before any development can proceed. Not that either should be ignored but Canada cannot compete at a global level with much of anything.

It will be interesting to see how young Justin manages to get our resources to market- which as I recall was also one of his election “promises”.

“Alberta lost its focus”?
No-site . . . they accidentally elected the Dippers, the Nutley Regime who preceded in typical NDP style to attack Business with a 20% tax increase. Attack hard working Albertans with a Tax Increase.
The “Amateur” minister of Finance thought two Credit Downgrades were “Positive” !
Two Billion dollar projects were cancelled after the Budget was released. And oil companies added more layoffs to compensate for the increased expenses. Resulting in over 100,000 job losses to date.
Contrast that to Texas where they have created 175,000 jobs in the last year . . . with the SAME oil prices.
Didn’t Klein balance the books in Alberta back in the day with $30 oil?

Ok. The housing problem is in need of a public audit. So is the MCFD and finally the LNG situation has just scuttled the governments “lottery ticket” (or as Vaughn Palmer put it “Fantasy and Fairy Tales”). an illuminating graph of their “performance” is right here.
TOTAL PUBLIC BC DEBT:
2010 $41.885 billion / 2015 $62.92 billion / 2018 $70.4 billion (est.)
This doesn’t include more than $100 billion in contractual obligations (2016 and beyond), up from $53 billion in 2010 (2011 and beyond).
PUBLIC DEBT (PER CAPITA):
2010 $9,391 / 2015 $13,586
BC HYDRO DEBT:
2010 $10.862 billion / 2015 $16.544 billion
ANNUAL INTEREST CHARGES:
2010 $2.205 billion / 2015 $2.465 billion
Or $6,753,424 per day / 14.3 per cent of BC’s debt is in US dollars
TAXPAYER–SUPPORTED DEBT AS A PERCENTAGE OF GDP:
2010 14.9 per cent / 2015 17.5 per cent

Who’s the Troll Joe? You’ve got the same voice no matter what name you use! A Liberal shill and a peckerwood to boot, don’t you know 99% of the people are already retired commenting here, you go get a Job. It’s your turn to do the work and then have someone else come and take it all away! GO NDP GO

“We have to resist the urge to spend our way into trouble.” ? ? ?
Isn’t that exactly what Justin is doing today? Spending us to prosperity . . . . lol

BC is the ONLY province today not in the tank . . . hopefully wisdom prevails, but with an uninformed electorate, anything can happen as we saw last October when we replaced “Substance” with “Style” . . .

The Liberals have bean spending themselves into trouble for years Golden Ears bridge, Portman Bridge, Sea to Sky Hwy, 9 Billion dollar Site C Dam, Sky train, Massey Tunnel replacement, selling off recently refitted Ferries for pennies on the dollar and Prime Real Estate to Liberal supporters to Balance the Budget, Millions of dollars spent in courts and biased reviews on their misconduct etc Fee increases on everything from Hydro, ICBC, MSP Premiums, Gas taxes, sin taxes, they promote gambling and on the other side Ministries are failing from under funding and on and on it goes and where does all the money go. BC may look good on paper from the shell game the government plays and Christy Clark is well know for exaggerating and spin and she has the least transparent and open government in the history of BC and if your impressed with the work (LOL) of this current government I feel for you no matter what party you support

A new Pew Research study concludes that “consistent liberals” are the most likely ideological group in America to block or defriend someone else because they disagree with that person’s politics.
“Roughly four-in-10 consistent liberals on Facebook have blocked or defriended someone because they disagreed with something that person posted about politics,” write the authors of the study, titled “Political Polarization and Media Habits.”
In other words, even though liberals say they are more open-minded and tolerant, they are more likely than conservatives to cut off any voice that disagrees with them on politics.http://constitution.com/if-you-think-liberals-are-more-open-minded-than-conservatives-you-should-check-out-these-surprising-facebook-stats/